After the Timberwolves’ most heartbreaking loss this season, coach Kurt Rambis found reasons to smile. Rambis said his team displayed its best effort at both ends of the floor in Wednesday night’s 113-109 overtime loss to San Antonio at Target Center.

The consoling words, however, had little effect on Wolves players, who were agonizing over another late-game collapse — this time after leading the team with the NBA’s best record by 21 points early in the third quarter, by 11 at the start of the fourth and by six with 2:05 left in the final period.

“This one hurts the worst,” Wolves forward Anthony Tolliver said, comparing late-game setbacks at Oklahoma City on Monday night and at Charlotte on Nov. 15. “When you have a game spoon-fed like this one, there’s no reason to let it get away. We were playing so well, and we let them chip away at us.”

San Antonio extended its winning streak to 12 games and improved to a league-best 13-1 after the Wolves (4-12) failed to convert on key possessions. Reminiscent of the collapses against Oklahoma City and Charlotte, the Wolves had a late lead in the fourth quarter but couldn’t hang on.

The Spurs’ comeback countered impressive performances from Kevin Love, who had game-highs of 32 points and 22 rebounds, and Darko Milicic, who is becoming one of the NBA’s top comeback stories. Milicic, averaging 22 points and 10 rebounds in the Wolves’ previous two games, followed up with 22 points, eight rebounds, five blocked shots and four assists.

Milicic might have done more if he hadn’t fouled out 10 seconds into overtime. One of the highlights for Rambis was seeing the Spurs forced to throw double-teams at Milicic when veteran all-star center Tim Duncan was unable to defend Milicic by himself.

Rambis was content to accept the loss as another round of growing pains for the youngest team in the NBA.

“As we grow as a young team and we evolve, these are the painful lessons that we have to learn,” Rambis said. “A lot of mistakes were made in crucial situations against a veteran playoff team. They make the plays, and we make the mistakes. I thought our guys did a terrific job. If we keep playing like that, we’ll be fine as a ballclub.”

One area the Wolves will have to improve is offensive execution in close games. After reserve Spurs forward Gary Neal hit three free throws to tie the score 106-106 with 16.2 seconds left in the fourth quarter — he was fouled by Wolves rookie Wesley Johnson on a three-point shot attempt — the Wolves had plenty of time to work for a winning shot.

Point guard Luke Ridnour spent most of the 16.2 seconds dribbling before getting his layup attempt blocked by Antonio McDyess with six-tenths of a second left. Ridnour was in a similar situation with 7.6 seconds left in the overtime and the Wolves trailing 111-109.

A play Rambis called during the timeout to feature a “two-man game” with Ridnour and Love never materialized, and Love ended up taking an off-balance shot near the three-point circle.

“We just didn’t get organized the way we wanted to … to get the shots we wanted to get,” Rambis said.

Michael Beasley has been a late-game option for the Wolves, but he was on the bench for the final 4:50 of the fourth quarter after missing badly on back-to-back jumpers and then throwing an errant pass out of bounds. Beasley, the Wolves’ leading scorer (21.9), ended up with 11 points on 5-for-12 shooting. Rambis did not design a play for Beasley in the final seconds of overtime.

The Wolves also didn’t have Milicic in the overtime, but the 7-foot center and his teammates were in agreement that the game never should have made it to the extra session.

“We can’t be scared to win,” Milicic said. “We were up 20. We should have kept playing. We get into the fourth quarter and we start thinking too much instead of just playing ball.”

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